It's a relief to be on our way , albeit with the wind acting off script ( the mother of all sea breezes giving us 25 knots thro the Needles Channel) and a missed tidal gate at Portland. Our furling headsail is fine up to 20 knots because we can keep it open - but as soon as we furl it its shape doews not match up to all the swish racers with their flat blade jibs. Nonetheless we caught up when they had to change headsails so as ever its wings and roundabouts.

Currently we are the most right hand boat in the fleet . We think the second most right hand boat is Chris Tibbs - so fingers crossed that we might get our NW shift.

Wether or not we do get it - we are committed to the inside passage at Portland. So the next hour or so should be fun- or disastrous.

Festina has been back from her Hebridean cruise for 9 days now - and the time has been spent flat out changing her from cruising to racing mode. It is one of life's mysteries how this process can take so long - but suffice to say she is nearly ready - which is just as well as it is 24 hours to the start of the Fastnet race.

At my age I really should have got all this racing business out of my system , but sad to say I am really quite excited at the prospect. Chris , my co-skipper , arrives in a few minutes straight from a windy Cowes week so it is refreshing to know that there is someone on board even crazier than me!

Hopefully, if Neptune does not keep us too busy ,and if I can find my glasses (!) I will be reporting from the race . RORC have a tracker on their website , and with our new AIS we can be spotted on the AIS website , so if anyone is interested there will be plenty of opportunities to follow our mistakes.